


give us the hours

by fated_addiction



Category: K-pop, Real Person Fiction, 소녀시대 | Girls' Generation | SNSD
Genre: Angst, F/F, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25427728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: “This may be your dumbest idea yet.”Jessica, Taeyeon, and a noraebang.(Or, Jessica's advice to letting go and how it never works.)
Relationships: Jung Sooyeon | Jessica/Kim Taeyeon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64





	give us the hours

**Author's Note:**

> For an Anonymous tumblr request, 'jessica, taeyeon, and a noraebang' which, as always, didn't turn out the way that I planned. Hope you enjoy!

-

“this may be your dumbest idea yet.”

leave it to soojung to keep it way too real. jessica tries not to hang up the phone either. just because she feels a little spiteful.

“in fact,” her sister says, “in a laundry list of dumb ideas, this is probably top ten territory. facts.”

jessica rolls her eyes. “the moral support is astounding.”

the last time she was in a noraebang, she still called herself ‘girls generation’s jessica!’ because why not. not to date herself. it’s just the truth.

“are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

her sister is suddenly serious. jessica blinks. follows the long hallway down to a set of rooms. the text had said the last one. the attendant at the front didn’t even recognize her. or care. there's no danger of a scandal anyway.

“i'll be fine,” she says. sighs. “i'll call you later, soojungie.”

she finds the door. anyways, it’s taeyeon’s fault she’s here.

they talk occasionally.

and when she says occasionally, she means ‘sending a company holiday card to someone you forgot you met’ occasionally. there is no structure to their relationship, or lack of, given that it’s really only been sunny that she stays consistently connected to out of all of them.

but she does gets texts. they have danced around each other for years now. taeyeon doesn’t say things like _thinking of you_ but rather, sends her weird pictures of nail polishes that she doesn’t think are meant for her. there are pictures of zero too, which she does like. zero is cute and while a lot of her friends are now having babies, it’s nice to get a picture of a dog. to break the mold, or whatever.

the strangest text was this one. it said something like _feel like singing?_ as if it were something akin to getting a drink. something she probably thinks is safer, given that it’s her and taeyeon alone in a room together. except the text was followed by an address and jessica googled it almost way too fast, finding out that the place was weirdly in between their two places. as if it were to make some kind of sense.

“maybe it’s time,” sunny says. they cancelled lunch together. she also had to tell someone. “i know she’s trying to get better about some things and i know you have a lot of issues with closure. so maybe this is it.”

jessica groans. “i'd rather just get pictures of zero occasionally. that are probably not meant for me, but whatever.”

“you try way too hard to be unbothered.” sunny is dry and seems to almost laugh. “and somehow that’s still cute.”

jessica never wants to tell her that she’s right.

there's that too.

for the record:

she does not remember what she was expecting. but she opens the door, shuts the door, and kim taeyeon is sinking into the only couch in the room, covered by neon lights and the reflection of large screen that yells “song selection!” as if to make this weirdly real. jessica does shut the door. also has enough sense to drop her bag and adjust her baseball cap. occasionally, she does remember she’s a celebrity.

neither of them greet each other though.

it's not a great stare down either. taeyeon looks tired. the book of songs on her lap seems to swallow her up too. jessica feels her heart uncurl and start to crawl up her throat. is it panic? no, she thinks. but that heavy, deep seeded concern comes out of nowhere and she really just wants to say this is _weird_ and what are _we_ doing because what else can she do.

taeyeon beats her to the punch. “hey.”

“hi?”

“thanks for coming,” she says and it’s laughable how formal it feels. jessica eyes her curiously as taeyeon adjusts herself on the couch and pushes the songbook away from her lap. “didn’t think you would.”

“i’m not avoiding you.”

“i know. it’s more like me avoiding you.”

ouch, jessica thinks. but doesn’t care. she moves to sit on the couch. blatantly turns and sits to specifically face her too. there’s no fanfare; taeyeon doesn’t look away either. it’s just similar to the last time they saw each other, where they _did_ try to talk and sort of put their feelings on the surface. happy ten years, maybe we should finally put all of this to bed – whoever said this would work was clearly lying to them both.

she's not angry at taeyeon. hasn't been in years. in fact, there’s a deep, almost resolute sadness that hits her from time to time. it borders on a mix of loneliness and need. where it’s always been taeyeon and tiffany and tiffany and taeyeon, jessica knows that she and taeyeon can exist as two people without each other. it's more like the what could have been given that two people can exist without each other, but make more sense being with each other.

on her good days, jessica likes to think of it as love, like actual love, like ‘i'm going to spend the rest of my life with you’ love. but that would mean admitting a lot more.

“should we, you know sing?”

taeyeon snorts. “yeah, sure.”

jessica reaches for the book.

they are two songs deep when taeyeon reaches over, mid-song, and grabs the book from jessica. jessica stumbles over a note and the song blares off to an end. jessica’s voice feels a little warm. singing feels a little rusty. it's not like singing in the car. she feels a little raw too. will never admit to sneaking a peek to see if taeyeon was watching her or not, even though she could definitely feel her.

admittedly she’s been struggling this entire time. it's weird to hear taeyeon’s voice this close. it unnerves her in a way that she didn’t think was possible. the radio hits differently. now the real person is here and all those memories she thought she had moved on from return and linger.

“what?” jessica feels the weight of the book gone still. “the song wasn’t over yet.”

“i'm picking my song.”

“i could have just handed it to you.” jessica eyes her. “you know, like a normal person. or you could have waited too. also like a normal person.”

taeyeon is serious. “it’s weird how much i missed your voice.”

it completely sideswipes her. jessica stares, her mouth half-opened. her body goes ridged and she immediately wants to fight. she had given herself a pep talk on the way here. expect a fight. you know this isn’t going to go well. but she always forgets that you never know what you’re going to do any sort of situation.

taeyeon also sighs. rubs her face. seems to hesitate and then looks up, her bangs sweeping across her eyes. as if on purpose.

“i have about a million things that i want to say,” she explains. “some of them i've probably have already said because i thought coming and singing might be the only thing would could agree on and be able to talk at because small rooms and privacy, you know? but i'm looking at you and it all goes out the door because i'm angry and i'm sad and i'm just really fucking happy to see you too. and that scares the hell out of me right now.”

jessica's stomach drops. her eyes widen and her mouth opens. there's a retort in there, somewhere, but she very nearly forgets where she is instead. a small voice in the back of her head eagerly reminds her that this is why, _this_ is why she avoids kim taeyeon just as much as she avoids her too.

she looks away and the screen hasn’t changed. the lights still play against the wall. she thinks taeyeon told her in the beginning that she’s bought this room for two hours and so really, they’ve got to stretch the time out.

“i don’t know what to say to _that_ ,” she blurts.

the last time they saw each other, they went to a bakery and a park. jessica thought about going vegan for a split second and hated the desserts. 

jessica pulls at her ponytail and tries to start again.

“i mean, what else is there to say? you’re mad at me. i'm apparently mad at you. we can barely talk through the reasons why were angry at each other, but keep circling each other for some weird kind of reunion.”

“true,” taeyeon agrees. almost reluctantly.

jessica has to laugh. “i guess i get it? i barely understand why you picked a noraebang to meet at? i haven’t sang in a really long time and it really pisses me off, so that’s also a struggle.”

“sorry.”

“are you?” she sighs loudly. she doesn’t know why that comes out. but if it’s about sudden honesty, she’s not taking it back. “i mean, i don’t know you anymore. it’s both our faults, i give you that. and i think the reason why i keep showing up is because i… i don’t know? do i want to have a relationship with you? maybe. you’re different now. i'm not really sure i know how much. or if i can like the kim taeyeon of now, rather than the one that i loved in the past. does that make sense? it's really hard to hear things like how much you missed my voice and then i don’t know what to say back, other than… i always hear your voice and i always choose to listen. so maybe that’s the difference.”

there's that. that’s as close to a confession as jessica is ready to get. she panics only slightly. her palms are a little sweaty and she has to stand. she's jittery and needs water. a soft sigh escapes her mouth and suddenly she’s stopped, jerked back, and taeyeon’s fingers are wrapped tightly around her wrist.

she turns and looks down. taeyeon holds her gaze. doesn’t say anything. pauses and then slowly starts to stand, directly into jessica’s space.

“what?” she asks. swallows and almost dares taeyeon. “what else is there to say?”

taeyeon presses forward. right into her. she’s on her toes, almost, and her mouth catches jessica’s just like that.

it’s a kiss, it’s not a kiss. jessica barely moves. maybe she’s finally surprised until she finds her mouth moving directly on its own. when her mouth opens, taeyeon sighs directly into it, her tongue pressing over hers and oh god, they really are kissing. it's stupidly clumsy too; as if they were teenagers in a practice room again, doing it on a dare when everyone knew this wasn’t a dare.

jessica remembers what it’s like to kiss kim taeyeon. remembers that she doesn’t hate it as much as she used to think.

“that’s not fair,” she says quietly, against taeyeon’s mouth. pushes her hair back and then steps away, just to give them some space.

taeyeon is breathing heavily. her mouth looks flushed. “i didn’t know what else to do,” she admits.

they stare at each other. 

the two hours are still not up. but jessica grabs her bag and her hat. fits her ponytail through the back and adjusts her mask back over her face. she's not running away, she tells herself. taeyeon remains cemented to the floor too, watching her. maybe her hands are even clenched into fists. that's one of her nervous habits, you know.

it’s just that she’s trying to be sensible. trying to move away from this before it becomes something just can’t control. something she’s undoubtedly not ready for and that is something she will admit to, a thousand times over. everything feels heavy and her hands feel like they’re shaking. calm down, she tells herself. calm down. there’s a billion things she could say. or do.

taeyeon still lets her go.

jessica does pause at the door. straightens her shoulders back. she turns a little. not to say any kind of goodbye.

she'll give her that. “maybe just buy me coffee next time,” she says.


End file.
